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God's creative gifts 

Giving our creativity over to God

 

Celebration of Creativity

Can you do this?

I wonder if you think you are creative—What you think you are good at. Maybe only those who think they are creative will bother to read this section!

If I asked a room full of 4 year olds if they could draw or make something, pretty much all of them would raise their hands. They are confident in their abilities.

I want us to think about that childlike ability to enjoy the process of creativity and be pleased with the result whatever the standard of what we have produced. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t learn and strive to be better but it does mean that we should not dwell on the negative.

Made in the image of a creator God

The first thing we find out about God in the Bible is that He is a creator and that He enjoys what he has made. We are like God in that we are made in His image and so we should expect some sort of creativity to be evident in our lives. There is lots of creativity in the Bible but we are not going to look at that now, suffice to say that many of the creative acts mentioned are to do with the building of the tabernacle and temple—directly used to bring glory to God. Everything that we do should be to bring glory to God and not to only ourselves, we are temples of the Holy Spirit. We too may receive praise but that should not be our motivation.

 

 

Just because we are all made in the image of a creator God does not mean that we are all going to enjoy the same means of being creative.

Activity

I want you to think about the activities that you do and those you enjoy doing. There may even be some that you have never done but would like to do. For now I want you to think of one that you would say was your main hobby or the one you enjoy most.

Creativity is not just about paint, glue and cutting but may include home-making, cooking, clothes making, gardening etc.

There are a wide variety of creative gifts. I am sure that everyone reading this article has picked something different from the next person—even if you have picked the same broad title for your hobby I am sure you do it differently. Just because we are all made in the image of a creator God does not mean that we are all going to enjoy the same means of being creative. God intended that we should be all different. That was part of his creation.

 

The “chief end of man is to glorify God”

How do you see things?

I want us to turn and look now at how we actually see our talent or gift.

I have already talked about bringing glory to God in what we do . Let’s look into that a bit more deeply.

The Catechism that teaches the Westminster confession of faith of 1646 tells us that the “chief end of man is to glorify God”. That means that everything that we are, everything that we do, should be in worship of God and to bring glory to Him. It is a summary of what the Bible teaches.

In our world today we have separated the spiritual from the worldly. We tend to look at things in the way the world does. For example if someone cooks at church it is a godly thing to do but if she cooks for herself at home it is not. If someone works for the church she is doing a godly thing but when she works for a secular company we tend to think it is not. If we paint the walls at church it is a godly thing but if we paint the walls at home it is not.

This is not what the Bible teaches us. God never made a distinction between the two. If we are a Christian everything we do is godly and there for should bring glory to God.

But do you see it that way?

When you make your thing do you recognise God in the creative process? Do you give thanks for the skill? Do you draw on him for help and inspiration? Is it something that you do together or relying only on yourself?

It was my own experience that it took me a while to realise the difference between the two. Yes I recognised that God gives gifts – even those we inherit from our parents or are born with – but then it was over to me to use them.

God himself had to draw me up short and show me that he is still involved and that it is possible to abuse the gifts as well as use them.

There is a lot of human creation around that is not godly. Tracy Emin’s tent ‘All the men I have ever slept with’, which was destroyed by a fire, may or may not be art but I do not believe it was a godly creation. For myself I got interested in drawing gargoyles and grotesques but God told me he did not want me to do this. They are not glorifying to him. They are mans way (a useless way) of dealing with evil spirits not God’s way. This is not something that God wants us to focus on.

These are not celebrating God and bringing him glory. I once went to a gallery in Iceland where I don’t think one single thing was godly there. You might have called it art and it certainly took skill to do but I believe it was well over the line of what is and is not acceptable for people to do.

What’s the definition – well the one I go by is that in Philippians 4 v8 " What ever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things". Of course these things should be measured by God’s standards not ours.

There is a lot of human creation around that is not godly.

 

 

 

 

 

These things should be measured by God’s standards not ours.

 

Prayer activity

Have you ever thought about your creative hobbies and past -times as something which should bring glory to God? Why not take the opportunity to think on this theme and pray the prayer below.

Read it through first and know that giving your gifts over to God will bring you further under His wing. Then pray...

 

Heavenly Father,

I thank you that you have created me in your image. I give you thanks that even before the creation of the world you knew me and knew the pleasure I would gain from creating things. I embrace the skill that you have given me.

I am so thankful that in You there is a well of expertise and ideas that never runs dry. I draw from this inexhaustible well today.

Let me never put my hand to creating anything which is not pure, lovely and noble. Let me truly be an image of your creativity to those around me.

In Jesus name, Amen.

 

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This article © Linda Faber 2006-2009.